Beautiful Patience

Islamic teachings from my madrasa days that guide me in moments like these.

This is gonna be a long one, buckle up. (excuse any typos… It’s been a long year already.)

I had drafts and scraps of posts for weeks: an Umrah reflection, an end-of-year piece, something about turning 28. All of them felt really real and honest when I wrote them. Not really anymore.

Our city is still under siege, no matter what the spin tries to convince you, everything is still the most terrifying it has ever been.

We are still being picked up

We are still so afraid to leave our homes or go to work

We are still carrying our passports

We are checking their mirrors as they drive

We are checking their mirrors as they drive

We are still whistling, patrolling their neighborhoods

We are still taking the long route home, so we are not being followed.

Don’t lose sight of that, pick up a shift, deliver food, protect your neighbors.

We are a week away from Ramadan, the most beautiful time of the year, and it won’t be the same. Many will be afraid to leave their homes to pray Fajr, Tahajjud, or Taraweeh. To come together and be in community. May Allah protect us all.

In this one, I will share some Islamic teachings from my madrasa days that guided me in moments like these.

TLDR:

Grief is real, don’t feel guilty for it, practice beautiful patience, and do your part.

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ʿĀM AL-ḤUZN, THE YEAR OF SORROW.

This actually took place right before the hijrah to Medinah that Zohran referenced.

It was the year the Prophet ﷺ lost his uncle Abu Talib, who raised him, and lost his wife, Lady Khadijah (رضي الله عنها).

Muslims had already lived years of persecution in Makkah. They had been subjected to a brutal social and economic boycott that forced them to live in a narrow valley outside the city. They were cut off from the life they had always known, from trade, marriage, and normal social life. Children cried from hunger. Food had to be smuggled in quietly at night.

Feels eerily familiar. That grief and the crippling fear that comes with it are so very real, and the Prophet ﷺ still sat with it and grieved, then got up to organize.

So should you.

Do not let all we are seeing and experiencing turn you to stone, nor let it cripple you. Use it as a fire to fight back in whatever way makes sense to you.

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ṢABR JAMĪL, BEAUTIFUL PATIENCE

This dunya is a test. Prophet Yusuf (عليه السلام) learned that very early in his life. He was betrayed by his own brothers.

They threw him into a well and then went home and lied to their father like it was nothing. They told Prophet Ya‘qub (عليه السلام) that a wolf ate him.

And the Qur’an tells us that Ya‘qub (عليه السلام) knew something was wrong. He wasn’t fooled. But he couldn’t go back in time and pull his son out of the well, so he turns to Allah.

And says:

“So beautiful patience.”
(Surah Yusuf 12:18)

And I sit with that so much.

We are watching, seeing it all, and the regime is just straight-up lying to our faces. We are watching executions right before us. We are watching fear seep into daily life, into families, into community spaces.

And in this moment, beautiful patience, to me, means holding onto the truth and carrying that trust in Allah, the ever-knowing, ever-seeing, ever-hearing.

It also means staying watchful and steady, staying principled, and doing whatever you can to resist, so the ugliness of this moment does not steal your humanity.

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What the Prophet ﷺ Says About Doing Something

There’s a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ that I keep coming back to in moments like these.

What are we supposed to do when we see injustice?

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said:

If you see something wrong, correct it by hand.

If you cannot, then use your tongue.

And if you cannot even do that, then hate it in your heart, and that is the weakest of faith.

No matter what you hear, in the face of injustice, Islam is never neutral.

If you see wrongdoing, you are meant to respond.

Remember, though, not in this weird performative way we see, not for attention or credit.

In a way that is real and honest, in whichever way that actually makes a difference, and even at the most bare minimum level, rejecting injustice in your heart.

Islam teaches us to refuse to normalize what we know is wrong. To refuse to let cruelty become background noise to daily life. Never let yourself be trained into numbness.

And with hardship comes ease.